The discovery of a small collection of correspondence
between Erik Chisholm and Serge Prokofiev came about quite by
accident. The Serge Prokofiev Archive at Goldsmiths, University
of London, holds a substantial collection of letters (in the
region of 16,000 pages) written by and received by Prokofiev
during the years he spent outside the Soviet Union (1918-1936).
Filling some 45 folders, these pages shed fascinating light
not only on the daily life and work of Prokofiev, but on his
many and illustrious correspondents, including Stravinsky, Miaskovsky
and Diaghilev.

Until 2006, the
Prokofiev correspondence was accessible only by browsing through
the letters chronologically, a fascinating but time-consuming
process. However, following the completion of a project to index
the letters by correspondent name, date, address and language,
quick and efficient searching of the collection is now possible
at the Archive. The index reveals that Prokofiev corresponded
with a number of figures from the world of British music in
the 1920s and early 1930s, including Albert Coates, Henry Wood,
M. Montagu-Nathan and Frank Merrick, and it was during a search
for any Prokofiev correspondence linked with Scotland, that
the name of Erik Chisholm appeared several times.

The Prokofiev-Chisholm
correspondence spans a period of nearly five years, from January
1931 to September 1935 (almost at the end of the collection
held at the Serge Prokofiev Archive). Whether the two stayed
in touch after Prokofiev’s return to Russia in early 1936 remains
unclear – while the final letter here does not seem to be the
end of their conversation, any extant correspondence after 1936
would be in archives in Russia.[1]

Though Erik Chisholm
focused his considerable energies in a number of directions
– composing, teaching, performing, writing – it was in his capacity
as an indefatigable promoter of contemporary music that he came
into contact with Prokofiev. In his home city of Glasgow, Chisholm
founded the Active Society for the Propagation of Contemporary
Music in 1930, with a friend, Patrick Shannon. The mission of
the Society was to bring to Glasgow (and occasionally Edinburgh)
musicians of international standing, and to secure performances
of works otherwise infrequently programmed.

Chisholm was the
ideal man for such a task – his persistence and unfailing enthusiasm
for such projects (which shines through in his correspondence)
resulted in some notable events: it was he who organised and
directed the first performance in Britain of Mozart’s Idomeneo
in 1934, and of Berlioz’s Les Troyens in 1935 through
his work with the Glasgow Grand Opera Society. Turning his attention
to contemporary music, Chisholm’s speculative invitations (with
the offer of an extremely modest fee) led to performances in
the 1930s in Glasgow by figures such as Hindemith, Casella,
Szymanowski and Bartok.

In January 1931,
Chisholm approached Prokofiev for the first time, proposing
that he perform in Glasgow, since Chisholm had heard that the
Russian (who was at this time still resident in Paris) would
be playing in London the following week. The short notice of
the request meant that Prokofiev received the letter too late,
but he suggested that Chisholm correspond with his Paris agent
Marcel de Valmalète, as he would certainly be interested for
the future.

A similar invitation
followed from Chisholm in August 1931, and it was at this point
that confusion arose between Prokofiev, Valmalète and Chisholm;
Valmalète replied to Chisholm mistakenly quoting Prokofiev’s
fee as £80. This horrified the Active Society since, as Chisholm
repeatedly told Prokofiev “like all Contemporary Music Societies
I have ever heard of we have only very small financial reserves”[2]
– and the plan was shelved.

However, subsequent
exchanges between Prokofiev and Chisholm clarified that Prokofiev
would be prepared to consider a lower fee if the engagement
could be arranged to coincide with a visit to London, though
by this time it was too late for the 1931 season.

By 1932, the Active
Society’s funds were even more restricted since the Scotto-Russian
Society, who had previously been relied upon to supplement performer
fees, had been disbanded. Chisholm therefore tried other methods
of encouraging Prokofiev: suggesting he perform in Glasgow while
in Britain for engagements in London (his suggestion was the
trip in June 1932 during which Prokofiev made his well-known
recording of his Piano Concert No. 3 with the London Symphony
Orchestra and Piero Coppola). He also proposed additional recitals
in Edinburgh and St Andrew’s to make the journey north more
worthwhile, or collaborative events with chamber musicians,
and he even wrote to the committee of the Scottish Orchestra[3]
to suggest that they engage Prokofiev to perform one of his
concertos, but warned that

“this committee consists of the older
generation of people who are very conservative in their outlook
– however we shall see!”[4]

However, none of Chisholm’s considerable efforts yielded any result. A
rather disconcerted letter of September 1932 to Prokofiev summed
up the position to date:

“It is more than two years since we first
wrote to you to arrange a concert, and we will be very sad if
it is not possible to arrange something. You are one of the
greatest living composers, and we believe that a programme of
the nature offered by the Active Society will not be complete
without the honour of a personal visit.”[5]

Prokofiev’s greatly hoped-for trip to Scotland
never took place. By the early 1930s, Prokofiev had begun to
move the centre of his activities from Paris to Moscow, and
was spending increasingly lengthy periods in the Soviet Union.
Despite apparent willingness on both sides, and great enthusiasm
on Chisholm’s part, the two men could not make the trip materialise.
However, this was not the end for Prokofiev and Chisholm.

In November 1932, Prokofiev wrote to Chisholm
to say that he was sorry that their long correspondence had
not resulted in a concert, but also that he had a proposal.
He writes (in French):

I leave shortly for a tour of concerts and,
among other cities, I will visit Moscow and Leningrad. A new
Parisian contemporary chamber music society, called Le Triton,
suggested to me that I use the opportunity of this trip to arrange
the performance in Moscow of some chamber pieces by modern French
composers. In exchange, Le Triton will arrange performances
in Paris of pieces by Russian composers which the society in
Moscow recommends to them.
The idea came to me to ask you if a similar exchange wouldn’t
interest the Active Society. If it does, I can suggest some
English pieces in exchange for the same number of Russian pieces
which the Active Society would include in their programmes.
[As I leave Paris tomorrow, I ask you to send your response
so that I can receive it between the 16th and 19th
November in Warsaw, Hotel Europejski]. The only thing that I
ask is that your proposal is made in precise terms, so that
my conversation with the chamber music societies in Moscow can
take place without any misunderstanding. A half-hour of music
will be, in my opinion, sufficient for the first time.”[6]

Chisholm responded in typically enthusiastic
fashion, although he slightly misunderstood, thinking that Prokofiev
was proposing a link with Le Triton. This society, of whose
‘Active Committee’ Prokofiev was a member, had been established
earlier that year with a similar mission to that proposed by
Prokofiev to Chisholm, though its circle spread wider than solely
the Soviet Union.

However, on this occasion, Prokofiev was operating
independently, and as he wrote to Chisholm, his idea came from:

“a desire to make Scottish music better known
in Russia and to do the same in exchange with Russian music
in Glasgow.”[7]

and so clearly went beyond his involvement with
the society in Paris. This is not a lone instance of Prokofiev’s
interest in contemporary music both in the Soviet Union and
in Western Europe; in numerous letters to cultural figures he
mentions young composers and or performers whose work or interpretation
has impressed him. From a man who was so single-minded about
his own music and was direct (to say the least), when something
failed to impress, this may seem a little incongruous, but it
seems that Prokofiev strongly and genuinely felt the possibility
and perhaps responsibility to really bring about cultural exchange
from his rather unique position, based in Paris, but touring
extensively in the Soviet Union and building a career in that
very different cultural world.

The problems and opportunities of his position
between these two musical worlds had in fact long occupied Prokofiev’s
mind. Following the warm reception he received on his first
return visit to the Soviet Union in 1927, his links were strengthened,
both personally, with more frequent correspondence with his
friends back in Russia, and professionally, with concerts, productions
of staged works, and finally, in 1933, a commission (the score
for the film Lieutenant Kijé). It was in this context
that Prokofiev, as David Nice states, “took it upon himself
to act as musical ambassador for the exchange of chamber music”[8]
– reflected in his proposal for Erik Chisholm.

The arrangements with Chisholm for an exchange
of Russian and Scottish music proceeded. Chisholm recommended
to Prokofiev the vocal music of Francis George Scott, as well
as his own Double Trio. By February 1933, Prokofiev was able
to report that his suggestion had met with approval in Moscow,
and that he would take the music when he returned there in April.
However, the parcel of music did not reach Paris in time for
Prokofiev to take the scores, and delivery was re-scheduled
for October. In return, he had initially suggested the 2nd
String Quartet by Miaskovsky, but when this was turned down
by Chisholm, he wrote in August 1933:

“I brought from Moscow several new chamber
music compositions which I hold at your disposal. As I remember,
you would not like to have large ensembles nor string quartets.
Would you be interested in a quartet for flute, oboe, clarinet
and bassoon, by D. Melkikh? In the affirmative, I can send you
the score for study. In the negative, let me know what kind
of ensembles you would prefer.”[9]

It was at this point that the arrangement seems
to have unravelled a little – there is nothing in the correspondence
to indicate what Chisholm thought of Melkikh’s quartet (which
was sent to Glasgow), despite numerous enquiries from Prokofiev
and from his secretary Mikhail Astroff. There is no evidence
in any programmes or reviews of the Active Society’s concerts
of the work having been performed, so the question remains sadly
unanswered.

From the Russian side, Prokofiev told Chisholm
in December 1933 that

“The melodies by Scott have been announced
in the series of the chamber music concerts of the Union of
Composers, Moscow. As soon as they will be performed, I will
send you the program.”[10]

There is no neat ending to this story – it is
unknown whether any performances materialised from Prokofiev
and Chisholm’s efforts. However, it does highlight certain themes:
Prokofiev’s interest in, and altruistic efforts to promote contemporary
music have received relatively little attention in discussion
about his life and work. Furthermore, his correspondence with
Chisholm highlights Prokofiev’s unusual position in the early
1930s, hovering between East and West. From Chisholm’s side,
connections were later developed with the Soviet Union – he
was invited to serve on a jury in a composition competition
in Moscow in 1952, where Shostakovich was the chairman, and
met Shostakovich again in Moscow and also in Edinburgh in 1962.
It was Shostakovich who suggested that Chisholm’s folk songs
were published by the State Music Publishers, and a collection
of 49 of these were published in 1964, shortly before Chisholm’s
death.

Fiona McKnight

Thanks
to Dr John Purser (whose Erik Chisholm, Scottish Modernist
(1904-1965), Chasing a Restless Muse will be published by
Boydell and Brewer in June 2009), Lesley Hart of University
of Cape Town Libraries, and to Erik Chisholm’s daughter and
grand-daughter Morag Chisholm and Fiona Wright, for information
on Erik Chisholm.

Fiona McKnight is Archivist of the Serge Prokofiev Archive at Goldsmiths, University
of London.

[1] In addition to the SergeProkofiev
Archive in London, there are two major collections of Prokofievpapers
in Moscow, held at RGALI (the State Archive of Literature
and Art) and the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture. These cover his early years
in Imperial Russia, and the period between his permanent return
to the Soviet Union in 1936 and his death in 1953. For more
information on the collections, see Noëlle Mann, “An Unlikely
Alliance: Prokofiev and London” in Three Oranges, the
journal of the SergeProkofiev
Foundation, No. 2 (2001), 34-37.

[10] Letter from Serge Prokofiev to Erik Chisholm, 18
December 1933 (Serge Prokofiev Archive).
There is no programme of a Moscow concert among
the Erik Chisholm papers
held at the University of Cape Town.

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